Apple Pay: a new frontier for scammers

Criminals in the US are using the new Apple Pay mobile payment system to buy high-value goods – often from Apple Stores – with stolen identities and credit card details.

Banks have been caught by surprise by the level of fraud, and the Guardian understands that some are scrambling to ensure that better verification and checking systems are put in place to prevent the problem running out of control, with around two million Americans already using the system.

The crooks have not broken the secure encryption around Apple Pay’s fingerprint-activated wireless payment mechanism. Instead, they are setting up new iPhones with stolen personal information, and then calling banks to â??provisionâ? the victimâ??s card on the phone to use it to buy goods.